Future looks bright as young guns blitz the pool

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A golden night in the pool at the Pan Pacific Junior
Championships in Hawaii on Saturday left Australia trailing only
Japan in the medal race.

Australia won five gold medals on Saturday, the third night of
the championships, to bring their tally to 11, with Japan on 12
with one night remaining.

Melbourne pair Haylee Reddaway and Andrew Lauterstein and
Queenslander Stephanie Rice led the way, with all enjoying
individual wins.

Reddaway, 17, forced her way into the Australian all-time top 10
for the 400 metres freestyle, knocking out Olympic golden girl
Petria Thomas with a time of four minutes, 10.81 seconds.

Lauterstein, 17, dug deep to come from behind to win the men's
100m butterfly in 53.77s, only marginally behind Olympic medallists
Michael Klim and Geoff Huegill at the same age.

But it was the emergence of Rice, just 16, and coached by former
Commonwealth Games swimmer Michael Bohl, which really had the team
pumped.

She became only the eighth Australian to break a minute for 100m
butterfly with a time of 59.66, just 0.18 outside Olympian Jessicah
Schipper's national 16 years record of 59.48.

Rice teamed with Bronte Barratt, Reddaway and Holly Thras to win
the 4x100m freestyle relay in 3:48.08 over Canada and the USA.

The men's team had a win in the same event, with individual 100m
freestyle winner Kirk Palmer, Kenrick Monk, 200m freestyle silver
medallist Andrew Thompson and Lauterstein clocking 3:21.38.

Head coach Leigh Nugent described it as one of the most
enjoyable swimming meetings he'd had.

"Full marks to the whole team, the swimmers, the coaches and the
staff for getting this team up," he said. "But the job is not done
yet, we still have one day to go and the Japanese are still one
gold medal in front."